THE JOURNEY OUT
We longed to leave the city. We yearned for more elbow space, less crime, traffic and noise. We wanted a wholesome atmosphere, filled with God’s creation and critters to raise our family.                                                             

Our dream finally came true! We sold our home on its little city lot and purchased a home on 3 country acres. Three acres seemed huge after being only yards away from our neighbors in the city. The property had a nice home with beautiful mountain and pastoral views. It even had a chicken coop and the previous owner left us 5 guinea fowl! It was the beginning or our "homesteading" journey!

Once we were settled in, the next thing we knew we were plowing up the old garden space (the grass was so overgrown it had to be bush hogged first!). Every good homestead has a garden, right? We brought in pickup trucks full of manure from the local dairy. We cleared rocks, rocks and more rocks! We had to use a Maddox to plant our potatoes! We obviously had a lot to learn about gardening in the mountains, soil amending and composting! But we learned! We knew we had succeeded when one of our neighbors commented that our garden looked as good as the "locals"!

Next came the chickens. One adult rooster for the cock-a-doodle-do on our little farm, a hen for eggs and several new chicks, many different breeds and colors. Again, we were learning. There were many trials and errors in our chicken raising. But, oh, how the children enjoyed the chickens! One unforgettable mistake we made was raising ducks with the chickens. The ducks thought they were chickens! They were terrified of the pond and they made an awful mess in the chicken coop! But we learned! We knew we had succeeded when our egg customers outnumbered our eggs!

With the garden and the chickens a success, one day my husband suggested we get a cow. "A cow?", I said. "But we don’t know anything about cows or how to milk." "We’ll learn", he said.

And learn we did. The hard way! By the way, NEVER buy a dry cow! Our neighbors let us borrow the 11 acre pasture across the road from our house. We began with one cow and ended up with three! Soon we had cute little calves running next to their mamas. We knew we had succeeded when we were getting 12 gallons a day of delicious Jersey milk with its rich cream! We started selling the milk to our friends and neighbors. The word spread. Soon we had such a demand for our milk that it paid the mortgage each month!

The next adventure was bees. My husband wanted honey so of course he bought some hives and learned about beekeeping! "Some" hives turned into 30! Now that was interesting! Needless to say, I was a little bit nervous about sharing 3 acres with literally hundreds of thousands of bees! You know that saying, "making a "beeline for it"? Did you know that there really is such a thing as a "beeline"? A word of advise, don’t put your clothes line with clean clothes under it!! We ended up with so much honey that we put it in 5 gallon plastic buckets and to this day, 8 years later, we are still eating it!! Mmmm, it is delicious!

In the meantime, we learned how to can, cut and split wood, heat our home with wood, raise strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. And as if we didn’t have enough to do we added some goats and two more children, one even born at home! We were the entertainment in our neighborhood! There was always something being born on our little homestead!

Then it happened. Our nice, quite little mountain town was turned upside down by a housing boom! Many others like us wanted out of the city! People were building everywhere! Land prices skyrocketed. Farm land was sold off to developers and became scarcer and scarcer. Our neighbors decided to sell the 11 acres across the road. We needed and wanted the land, but we couldn’t afford the $10,00 per acre price. Life was already hectic enough trying to hold down full time work and run a small farm, and we didn’t need another mortgage. What would we do about the cows? What would happen to our children without a farm to keep them busy?

My husband decided we needed to move. He had an unexplainable draw to the Plain People and their lifestyle. Maybe it was the closeness of their families, the unhurriedness of their daily life, the simplicity... Whatever it was it was strong enough for him to convince me we needed to put our mini farm on the market. I knew in my heart this was the best thing to do but I was still very reluctant. I told myself not to panic, after all, we were told by the realtor that no one moving into the area wanted our big 4 bedroom, 4 bath home. It would take quite a while to sell it they told us. The house sold in 4 DAYS!! The next thing I knew the little farmstead was packed up and we were headed out. We loaded the numerous chickens, the 3 cows, 1 calf, and yes, even the bees!! It took three U-Hauls, 2 horse trailers for the cows, and a trailer for the bee hives and two trips!

LIFE: AMISH-STYLE
We moved onto a rented 25 acre farm in a plain community in TN. It was a huge Amish farmhouse with 5 bedrooms and NO baths. That’s right no bathroom. Well, technically it had a bathroom but there was no commode, no sink and no bathtub. The room that should of been a bathroom had been used as a pantry by the family that lived here before us. I looked out the window and saw the outhouse. Well, that answered one question. But what about bathing? My husband explained about the concrete spring box room down in the basement that had a shower head where we could take our showers. "Can I handle this?", I wondered. I had just left a beautiful home with 4 bathrooms. Where we had just moved from you ask people, "HOW MANY" bathrooms they have, not, "DO you have a bathroom?’!

I decided to look around the kitchen and see if I could find any encouragement there. There were cabinets and a sink! So far so good! I turned on the faucet and prayed water would come out. Surely, we weren’t going to have to haul water? Out came cold water. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I turned on the hot water. Nothing. I looked under the sink. There wasn’t even plumbing to the hot water faucet! The knot in my stomach was getting bigger and tighter. Reality hit, there was no hot water anywhere in the house! This definitely isn’t going to be easy, I thought.

I tried to summon up enough courage to look around further. There was no refrigerator. Then I remembered the spring box room in the basement my husband had told me about. This would be the refrigerator for the time being. "The spring water is cold enough to keep the perishable food ‘refrigerated’", my husband assured me. I put two and two together on my own. This was the same spring that would provide the water for our showers! I didn’t even want to think about it!

I turned my thoughts to cooking. Where and how was I going to cook? There was a big, empty space on the wall next to a flue. It was easy to figure out that’s where a wood cook stove should go. The new Amish wood cook stove we ordered wouldn’t arrive for 2 more months. It didn’t matter anyway, I knew nothing about wood cook stove cookery. It was a good thing we had a camp stove with us. We might be dirty (until we got up enough courage to take a cold shower) but at least we wouldn’t starve!

Of course the big Amish farmhouse had no electricity. For several weeks after we moved in we still tried to turn on the light switches (that weren’t there) when we would walk into a room. We had sold all our electric lamps and purchased kerosene lamps from an Amish catalog. Just like in years gone by, kerosene lamps lit our home. It was not safe nor was it easy to carry a small child ( or anything else for that matter) and a kerosene lamp at the same time when you had to move from room to room at night. Instead of the lamps we took flashlights . Sometimes the batteries went dead and left you in a pitch black room such as the basement and you had to grope around in the dark to find your way. We had always heard about the simple way the Amish lived. It was beginning to seem that this life was not simple. Flipping on the light switch, now that was simple!

We lived among the Plain People for 2 ½ years. And just like when we left the city we had much to learn! And learn we did! We became proficient at using a horse and buggy, wood cook stoves, kerosene lamps, canning, plowing with horses, maintaining a green house, developing a spring head and gravity flow water system. All of it became everyday life to us. We will never forget what we learned!

We even improved the living conditions in the big farmhouse. The community helped us put in a septic. We put in the bathroom appliances. We used the old claw foot tub we brought with us from our mountain home. Daniel commented that the community would probably think we were pretty uppity for having an antique bathtub. I hadn’t thought of that. All I knew is that I had my heart set on finally being able to use the old tub my husband had so lovingly found for me. It brought back memories from my early childhood. It was all we had so we decided to go ahead and install it. Then one day one of our neighbors came for a visit and wanted to know why we were using a "horse trough" to bathe in! Obviously, those old tubs had a different use here on the Amish farms! We still laugh over that one!

Much to my delight, Daniel eventually plumbed in hot water. And we bought a propane refrigerator (we still used the spring box, too)! At first we were content doing without most of the conveniences we had grown up with. However, we did not share the community’s religious convictions about the use of some modern conveniences and eventually we began to look into solar and alternative energy. Our simple system ran the washer, cordless telephone, some lights, fans, a radio/tape player and other small kitchen appliances.

We became so comfortable in our off grid lifestyle that we prayed if it was God’s will we would be willing to buy the farm (we were only renting at the time) and continue to live off the grid. However, the Lord had other plans for us.

STOVES & MORE
We are, for the time being, back on the grid, just a mile up the road from our plain neighbors. We packed away the kerosene lamps, refusing to sell them (we might need them someday we thought). We took our claw foot tub, our buggy and "Sonny", our buggy horse that became part of the family and our wood cook stove, which in its own way had become part of the family, too.

We prayed that the Lord would give us a business where we could work and be together. We also prayed that it would be something that would help people and that it would be something worthwhile. The Lord answered our prayer and STOVES & MORE was birthed.

What does the "more" in the name refer to? While it does refer to the other items we offer other than wood cook stoves, the "more", most importantly, refers to the ministry side of our business. The Lord has reminded us that we have a wealth of information and experience to impart to people as they leave the cities and learn of country living. We now understand that we were given the experience of living among the Plain People not solely for our own advantage but also for the sake of helping others. It is very exciting to look back and see how God has led!

We would like to be a part of your journey out! We can make yours much easier than was ours! Let us encourage you - there is life after the grid it is called alternative energy and it is well! And if you are already out but need some things to make your homestead a little more comfortable we’d like to help you, too!

We’ve done it! We’ve lived it! And we want to share our experience and knowledge! We look forward to talking with you!